Liner Notes (pt. 1)

Before all analog things became cool and they were just simply . . . analog and normal, one of the greatest pleasures in life for me was buying a new record and, while playing it, reading the liner notes usually included either on the inside sleeve or more often—especially in the case of jazz records—on the back of the jacket.

The rock and pop records I bought were replete with credits, normally. People who worked on the project, from the producer and engineer in the studio, to photo location crew, make-up artists, and even catering companies supplying sustenance for everyone involved in the project were duly given their credit. It was something special and downright cool to see the same names pop up time and time again on successive Police records or Zeppelin vinyl. It invoked a sort of familial continuity in which I came to find comfort with every band’s new offering; with every new project they brought along their usual crew of talented, behind-the-scenes people. It felt cozy and familiar coming across the usual suspects.

From time to time it was almost jaw-dropping or scandalously cool to encounter a new producer, say, or a new engineer. That sort of revelation was almost like a divorce had taken place in the times between the last record and the new one. I remember vividly in 1985 reading the liner notes and literally gasping when Rush changed their long-time producer (to Peter Collins) for their new Power Windows album, fully overhauling their sound (keyboards, Midi triggers, the Wal bass, Whaaaa?). It was something monumental to me: Oooooo, a new member of the family! Ooooo, a new sound! A new beginning! I loved it all, even though some fans didn’t appreciate the changes, both in personnel and sonic direction.

But jazz records had the liner notes that I loved the most, in addition to the essential, requisite credits for the musicians and technicians. Usually on the back of the jacket, I would find an extensive, expansive essay on the album—most often with track-by-track analysis and insights. These writings were penned by the most revered and intellectual jazz writers and critics working at the time. And, while I loved reading them on each record, I was often left dumbfounded. The analysis was usually cryptic to me. Ideas explored flew over my head. Many times I was left with the impression that I had to be part of the exclusive writing/critic world itself, or part of the jazz universe, or the musicians’ personal orbits to fully comprehend what was being discussed. Still, I loved reading what I thought were incomprehensible liner notes at the very least because they played into the mystery of improvisation and the reverie I felt for jazz (with a capital J).

At first I thought the issue was my young age. Surely, a 14- or 15-year-old dorkus sequestered in his bedroom, reading about the complex processes a Coltrane or Bird or Monk had unraveled for the listener with their latest album would be Miles Away (not a Miles Davis record, just my perceived wittiness) from fully understanding the ideas. But I was wrong. I returned many times over the course of the following decades to the liner notes of these jazz writers and critics with much more reading and writing experience under my belt, as well as playing the music itself (I’m a drummer.) and studying it almost daily, and still found it difficult to understand just what in the hell these guys (and they were all guys, mind you) were talking about.

This state of obfuscation continued for me as recently as last year when I laboriously trudged through the 750 pages of celebrated critic and scholar Gary Giddins’s definitive masterpiece Visions of Jazz: The First Century. It is hands-down one of the most vital records of the first hundred years of this wonderful, original Black art form. But . . . it is a very difficult read. And I don’t mean “difficult” like Pynchon difficult (which really ain’t difficult, just wacky). I mean you better know yourself some hardcore music theory, mister. Otherwise you, like me, will be left sitting there wishing you’d have gone to music school. (I coulda been a contender . . . )

Well, almost. There is enough meat on which readers can chew to get a good sense of the music and obtain a solid education. But overall, coming to this gargantuan account armed with the experience of reading thousands of books in general and (Steve) Gadd knows how many other thousands of articles and magazines, not to mention thousands of hours of listening to jazz from the last century and current era, this scholarly behemoth was a bear to slog through. It took me some good number of months to finish it all.

Enter Ralph Ellison and his brilliant omnibus of jazz essays called Living with Music. I don’t know how or when I purchased this marvelous collection. I found it hidden in my bookcase; it was sandwiched between Charles Mingus’s Beneath the Underdog and Patti Smith’s Year of the Monkey. It must’ve been something I picked up recently, based on its hiding place. I had just read Patti’s book a few months ago and was going to re-read Mingus’s autobiography soon. Which means I should’ve at least noticed Ellison upon returning Patti to her spot on the shelf. This is what decades of martinis and an advanced age will get you. Kids, switch to magic edibles. Save your brainpower. And livers.

Ralph Ellison writes about jazz with a clarity, a love, an eloquence, and a respect that I’ve never before read in all the liner notes and all the other accounts, articles, and interviews with musicians of this great music genre. His style is pure elegance, like Duke Ellington’s compositions, married with an accessibility of language that enfolds his readers into a universal embrace of love and dignity. It is possible, Ellison shows through his essays, for this music to ignite within every one of us an altruistic sense of humanity and a celestial sense of belonging to one race—the human one.

Mind you, he never sugarcoats the awful inequities of racial bigotry and unequal social stratification that jazz often explores, or the dark places and fields of cotton from where the tunes themselves were birthed. Not like anyone would ever expect that from the caliber of and track record of Ellison anyway. But he is somehow able to transcend the ugliness of all that and transmit to future generations the enlightenment, history, and freedom of jazz through his writing.

Here, from the Sunday Star on April 27, 1969 is Ellison with his homage to Duke Ellington on Duke’s 70th birthday:

Place Ellington with Hemingway, they are both larger than life, both masters of that which is most enduring in the human enterprise: the power of man to define himself against the ravages of time through artistic style. . . . Indeed, during the thirties and forties, when most aspiring writers of fiction were learning from the style and example of Hemingway, many jazz composers, orchestrators, and arrangers were following the example of Ellington, attempting to make something new and uniquely their own out of the traditional elements of the blues and jazz.

Interesting, the invocation and parallels Ellison draws between Duke and Papa—both artists born within three months of one another in 1899. Interesting, relevant, accurate, and certainly not cryptic or academic analysis by any means. There is no circular logic here, no hemming and hawing (there is a joke in here somewhere with Heming- in that sentence, but I’m not a comedian so . . . ), just straight up good writing and a spot-on parallel.

From the same piece, here he is again, this time dealing an elegant blow to the rock-n-roll U.K invasion of our airwaves during those days:

During a period when groups of young English entertainers who based their creations upon the Negro American musical tradition have effected a questionable revolution of manners among American youths, perhaps it is time we paid our respects to a man who has spent his life reducing the violence and chaos of American life to artistic order. I have no idea where we shall all be one hundred years from now, but if there is a classical music in which the American experience has finally discovered the voice of its own complexity, it will owe much of its direction to the achievements of Edward Kennedy Ellington. For many years he has been telling us how marvelous, mad, violent, hopeful, nostalgic and (perhaps) decent we are. He is one of the musical fathers of our country, and throughout all these years he has, as he tells us so mockingly, loved us madly. We are privileged to have lived during his time and to have known so great a man, so great a musician.

No mincing words there in that opening sentence, yes? Just a nice, quick slap to the face of those seemingly intrepid English cultural invaders, reminding them to whom they have to pay homage. I’m still looking at you, Mick and Keith! ‘Course the Stones have never denied appropriation, so I shouldn’t lean on them too heavily. Offhand here: personally I’ve always thought some of these legendary artists did nothing but repackage original Black blues that have always been part of African-American culture and resold it to us white people as the latest and greatest. To me, and I’ll catch flak for this, the likes of the Stones or Elvis have always reminded me of Wonder Bread—puffy, white filler devoid of any nutrients and with few benefits. (Commence your firing!)

But I digress.

I wanted to write something personal on Mahalia Jackson and look at the way Ralph Ellison, writing in the Saturday Review in 1958, celebrates her music and stature as a quintessential artist in our culture, but I’m afraid this piece has run long enough. Perhaps I shall write a companion piece to this in the near future; a part deux, if you will. (And you will, damit!)

The pleasure of rushing out, buying a new record, dropping the needle onto the grooves, and reading its liner notes has never subsided. An unfortunate and tragic situation fifteen years ago during a move from the family house, which was sold by my parents, left me without my decades-old collection of vinyl. I lost literally hundreds of my records—all bought with money I had made from my various jobs as a teen all the way through adulthood. I will one day write about that, as well.

But, from the ashes rises the Phoenix, I suppose. In the last few years I’ve started to rebuild my convocation of records little by little. Let me tell you, the price of vinyl ain’t what it used to be back in the 80s—the decade which saw most of my record purchases. But nevertheless, coming home with a new album is still the big deal that used to be back then when I was a pimply faced daydreamer. It’s a ritual that hasn’t disappeared from my life. It’s an event, really. A good, solid hour is set aside for a proper sit-down with a double whiskey and a good listen to the record. As well as a good, long, attentive read of its liner notes.